pensions
The Orange County Registrar of Voters has confirmed that incumbent Roger Hilton has won the OCERS Board of Retirement Safety Member election. The unofficial cumulative report shows that the AOCDS 1st vice president received nearly 64% of the votes. His challenger, OC firefighter Jeremy Vallone, received about 36%.
In the recent Marin and CalFire cases, the appellate court held that there is a vested right only to a “reasonable” pension and that no new comparable benefit must be granted in order for the legislature to reduce benefit calculations. Not only do these rulings undo the “California Rule” that protects our pensions, but they are also vague and leave pensions too easily reduced. Both the Marin and CalFire cases have been appealed and accepted by the California Supreme Court to be ruled on at a later date.
The actuary, Paul Angelo, presented three recommended options to the Board and all of which included changing to generational mortality. AOCDS does not agree with the recommendations, based on a lack of credible data on the new generational mortality rate table and because of the sporadic changes in these rates. We believe we should remain with static mortality tables, but with the most updated version, until generational tables are more accurate on life expectancy and give us a better long-term prediction.